The article presents an example of solving problems related to warehouse management in an enterprise in the form of a proprietary IT system called “Storage System”, which takes into account criteria such as: flexibility, efficiency, effectiveness, and the security of logistics operations. The implementation of the discussed system was successfully carried out in one of the domestic enterprises in the Łódź Voivodeship, and development work is currently underway to add new modules. Operating an enterprise without a system supporting the flow of logistics processes can now be considered almost impossible. An IT system well-matched to the management policy of a given organization means a number of advantages and benefits for both the user and the company. Above all, it must be designed and implemented in accordance with the convention and using the JAD (Joint Application Design) methodology.
This methodology consists of selecting an appropriate group of employees who will discuss and resolve problems related to the construction, implementation, and operation of the system. The selection of this group is significant because the practical knowledge and experience of the project participants are extremely important. The modularity of the application ensures its flexibility, and thus easy adaptation of the system to the requirements of the enterprise. A user participating in the construction of the system becomes deeply convinced of the purposefulness of its introduction. The very contribution of the employee’s skills and willingness to create it determines the future effectiveness of the system and the identification of the rest of the users with it. Currently, there are many systems on the market supporting the management of areas such as: finance, sales, transport, but there are few applications focusing on effective warehouse management intended for the SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) sector. Furthermore, not every application is flexible enough to be adapted to the needs of a given enterprise, taking into account the specifics of warehouse and technological processes (receiving, storing, issuing goods, setting rates).
The company that wins on the market is the one that guarantees high quality of its services and the innovation of introduced solutions, but also the one that takes care of the quality of maintained customer relationships. The above requirements are met by the “Storage System” application, which provides the customer with constant access to information about the goods stored by them, along with the possibility of checking current receivables from anywhere in the world. In this aspect, “Storage System” allows for staying ahead of the competition by guaranteeing the customer 24-hour insight into the warehouse processes taking place with the participation of their goods. The application itself ensures satisfaction with using the company’s services, while the enterprise gains a loyal partner. Relationship marketing is a key element in the electronic economy. Currently, it finds its strong resonance in the world of the Internet, and the tool providing access to the system is a simple web browser, as in the case of “Storage System”. Modern information transmission techniques are available not only for large enterprises but also for the SME sector. Year by year, along with the increase in awareness and the spread of provider services in Poland, Internet users have become accustomed to the convenience and universality of all services provided electronically.
The development of the WWW has caused a huge dynamic of changes in the technologies used in the construction of web applications, and consequently – has led to the significant commercialization of modern IT solutions. The universality of the Internet has become an excellent source of new opportunities for the development of logistics. The use of the network and a properly built system supporting warehouse management causes, among others, the following benefits:
Fundamentals of designing logistics systems
Logistics as a scientific discipline is included in the systemic trend of management sciences, which causes the a priori adoption of a certain way of perceiving the problems occurring here and the applied methodology. The foundations of modern concepts in the field of logistics have their source in the general systems theory, which means that for the purpose of implementing specific IT, organizational, or technical solutions in the design phase, the system is described in a simplified form, which usually takes the form of a verbal description. In the next stages of work, the verbal description is usually converted into a logical-mathematical model (Fig. 1), which takes into account the elements occurring in the system, the relationships that occur between the elements of the system, and the relationships of the system with the environment.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka”, No. 2/2006.